“Imam Khomeini port will be ceded to the private sector,” Behbahani told reporters on the sidelines of a transportation conference in Tehran. The minister did not give further details about the move.

Article 44 of the Iranian Constitution stipulates that the country's economic system shall be based on public, cooperative and private sectors.

All large-scale industries, mother industries, foreign trade, large mines, banking, insurance, power supply, dams and large irrigation channels, radio and television, post, telegraph and telephone, aviation, shipping, roads, rails, refineries and the like are public property and under the guidance of the government.

A 2004 amendment to the Article, however, has set in motion a ten-year plan to privatize eighty percent of Iran's state-owned assets.

Earlier last month, Head of Iran's Privatization Organization Gholam-Reza Heydari-Kord Zangeneh said that the Islamic Republic of Iran has privatized $63 billion worth of government equity in state-owned firms since 2005.